Topsy-Turvy

John Heyman reports a deal in place for Joe Blanton, with the Sox as the taker. Pete Abe's headline says "no deal in place".

Why would the Sox want a $17M, 5.00 ERA NL guy on their payroll, unless they were using him as organizational depth to make some other move. This one smacks us as strange, potentially unnecessary, and either untrue or part of a larger strategy. A strategy we don't quite get, for the record. So call us skeptical.

There is a theory that the Sox are taking on some of Blanton’s contract to help facilitate Lee’s signing with the Phils. Crazy.
Yes, it is crazy, and a conspiracy theory. It is absurd. Sorry, I don’t buy it.
They have got to be planning on moving someone, Dice-K, or Blanton himself. He’s a shit pitcher, I want him gone. That’s if he is even coming.

Or, the Sox use Blanton instead of DiceK, then package DiceK and prospects for a RH bat somewhere.
For some reason, this all reeks of another big trade to me. I don’t know how, but it’s just my feeling.
Also, Kudos to the Sox if that were the case re: Blanton v. payroll. It’s a smart move for Boston to facilitate a move that allows Cliff Lee to NOT pitch for the Yankees. 30 other General Managers would do the same.

Well, I think it’s pretty clear that this is another mark against ever believing anything Jon Heyman reports again. Pete Abe saying the Sox and Phils discussed a trade last night, but that they reached no agreement and nothing is in place.
Let’s go ahead and write this down for posterity:
Jon Heyman: Shill for Scott Boras.
Jon Heyman: Wrong in saying Adrian Gonzalez trade was “dead.”
Jon Heyman: Wrong in saying Sox and Gonzalez had agreed to 7-year, $160M+ extension.
Jon Heyman: Wrong in saying Sox and Phillies have a deal in place for Joe Blanton.

But Heyman was right that there was a mystery team!
By the way, that theory is batshit crazy and I wasn’t reading mlbtraderumors carefully. It’s a reader’s theory. Not true. I’m suoer jetlagged, half delirious.

If true, it has to be illegal. Collusion?
What’s wrong with the Phillies saying “Hey we’re looking to shed some payroll so we can make a move for a free agent starting pitcher… Theo, are you interested in taking Blanton off our hands so we could bring this pitcher to the NL East?”
It probably didn’t happen, but it’s certainly not collusion.

Rumor has it this move is to set up a Dice-K and Ellsbury trade to the Mets for Beltran. Not sure how I feel about this.
That rumor is also majorly idiotic. Again, can the Sox do better than an aging, injury-prone player like Beltran with those two trading pieces?
Always do this exercise: ask yourself if your GM is smart. If the answer is “yes” move on to this question – “If our smart GM sent an email out to every other GM announcing that Jacoby Ellsbury was available in a trade, would he do better than an aging, expensive, injury-prone player from the Mets”. And then ask “would he just HAVE to have said aging, injury prone CFer so badly that he also threw in a serviceable major league starter to boot?”.
This is an idiotic rumor, in my opinion.

Agreed re: Beltran.
Taking a flier on Beltran requires nothing more than a miL outfielder and eating his cash. No reason to move a player of note at all. The Metros would LOVE to just rid that money, no matter the return at all at this point.

Lets make this call in April.
Well, the fact is his numbers are off from what everyone else reported, and everyone else also reported the deal as “general parameters agreed to” while Heyman said the deal had been done but there wouldn’t be an announcement. Maybe he’s right, but I doubt it; Boras wasn’t the agent on this one, after all.